Geoffrey Tolwyn
Admiral Sir Geoffrey Tolwyn, Bt. VC, MOH, DSC, KCB, simply known as Geoffrey Tolwyn, was a character from the Wing Commander series of videogames and the movie based upon the games. He was portrayed and voiced by Malcolm McDowell. Overview Tolwyn grew up during the time before the Kilrathi war and started his career as a military officer in the Terran just before the war started with the Kilrathi. Over the years he rose in rank, eventually becoming an Admiral. During the closing years of the war he was the superior officer of Christopher Blair. In the closing years of the war the situation became desperate, with the tide turning against the Confederation. The Confederation started superweapon projects to destroy Kilrah, which would have killed the Kilrathi Emperor and decimated the fleet. Tolwyn's project, the TCS Behemoth, was a battleship with weapons that could destroy a planet. The Behemoth unfortunately was destroyed when a Kilrathi spy transmitted the weak points in the ship's superstructure to his people, enabling them to destroy the weapon. Tolwyn's career barely survived the fiasco and he barely escaped being cashiered from the fleet. During the war Tolwyn became aware of the Black Lance program - an effort to produce genetically enhanced warriors that would be capable of defeating the Kilrathi. Tolwyn took control of the program, and after the Confederation Senate cancelled the program he kept it going in secret, turning them into his own personal force. Seether became his second in commander to these rogue special ops forces. General Taggart's Temblor Bomb project ultimately proved successful. The precisely targeted bomb destroyed Kilrah and devastated their fleet. The surviving Kilrathi surrendered to Blair, followed by singing a surrender document at a ceremony that Tolwyn attended. After the war Tolwyn came to believe that humanity had lost its direction, believing humanity to have been at its zenith when fighting Kilrathi. Making a study of Kilrathi history he learned that they had endured for millions of years, mainly due to continual conflict. He came to believe that the only way humanity would endure and evolve would be through conflict. Tolwyn had his Black Lance forces start attacking Confederation targets, making it appear that the Union of Border Worlds was attacking the Confederation. Tolwyn was ordered by the Confederation to get to the bottom of the matter. As such Tolwyn brought Blair back into active service and ordered him to the front lines to investigate the situation. When Blair's superior officer and friend William Eisen defected to the Border Worlds Blair followed him. Blair saw first hand the genetic weapons the Black Lance used against civilians, which killed all those without what the designers considered as perfect genetics. He also eventually uncovered existence of the Black Lance forces and also witnessed Tolwyn addressing these forces. It then became clear that Tolwyn was responsible for the conflict, hoping to start a war between the Confederation and the Border Worlds. Blair pursued Tolwyn back to Earth where Tolwyn was being promoted to Space Marshal and giving his report on the situation. Charging into the meeting, Blair was able to get Tolwyn to admit to his crimes in full view of the Senate. Tolywn started a rant about how humans would only evolve through conflict, that they had to perfect their methods of killing. He was stopped by Taggart, who declared the assembly had heard enough from him. The Senate voted by a large margin against declaring war on the Border Worlds. Immediately after the vote Admiral Tolwyn was taken into custody. A large number of people testified against Tolwyn. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. After Tolwyn's appeal was denied he committed suicide in his prison cell the day before he was to be executed. Trivia *In Wing Commander 3 and Wing Commander 4 Tolwyn was played by Malcolm McDowell. McDowell also played Alex DeLarge in the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, Caligula in the 1979 film Caligula , Colonel F. E. Cochrane in the 1983 film Blue Thunder, Tolian Soran in Star Trek: Generations, Kesslee in the 1995 film Tank Girl, Marcus Kane in the 2008 film Doomsday. *In the live action Wing Commander movie Tolwyn was played by the actor David Warner. He also played John Leslie Stevenson a.k.a. Jack the Ripper in the 1979 film Time After Time, The Evil Genius a.k.a. Evil in the 1981 film Time Bandits, Ed Dillinger Sr., MCP, and Sark in the 1982 film Tron. 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